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Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:13-16
In this chapter we want to go on to see the organic building up of the Body of Christ revealed in Ephesians 4:13-16. In order to understand these verses thoroughly, we must read them very attentively and carefully. Verse 13 says, “Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” To “arrive” indicates that we have to go on. Without going on, there will be no arrival. Therefore, we all have to go on until we arrive at three things. First, we need to arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God. The faith refers to what we believe in, which is mainly the redemptive work of Christ, the completed work of Christ. The full knowledge of the Son of God refers to the person of Christ. The oneness is of the completed, redemptive work of Christ and of the wonderful person of Christ. Second, we need to arrive at a full-grown man. Third, we need to arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Verse 14 says, “That we may be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error.” In this verse there are the wind and the waves. The storms on the sea come from the wind and the waves. Verse 15 says, “But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ.”
Verse 16 says, “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” In our body there are the joints and all the parts. The joints are joined together, and all the parts are knit together. The joining refers to the joints, and the knitting refers to all the other parts.
In order to understand verse 16 adequately, we must see the subject and the predicate. All the Body is the subject, and the predicate is causes. The basic sentence of this verse reads this way: “All the Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” In between the subject all the Body and the predicate causes there is a long adjective phrase that modifies all the Body. All the Body is joined together and knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part. Out from the Head all the Body causes the growth of the Body.
The predicate causes is modified by three prepositional phrases that act as adverbs: out from whom, unto the building up of itself, and in love. All the Body causes the growth of the Body from what source? Out from the Head. All the Body causes the growth of the Body unto what purpose? Unto the building up of itself. All the Body causes the growth of the Body in what way? In love. The sentence could read this way: “All the Body, out from the Head, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”
Furthermore, all the Body causes the growth of the Body by being joined together through the rich supply of all the joints and by being knit together through the operation in measure of each one part. Through the rich supply of the joints and through the operation in measure of each one part, the entire Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:16 talks about the organic building up of the Body. The building up of the Body takes place by the Body causing itself to grow. Through the supply of the joints and the operation of each one part in its measure, the entire Body is joined together and knit together. Then the Body works by causing itself to grow for the purpose of the building up of itself in love as an organism. Ephesians 4:16 is the unique verse in the Bible that tells us how the organic Body of Christ can be practically built up in the organic way.
In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church.” We need to see what the rock in Matthew 16:18 is. Many Christians would say that the rock is the living Christ. That means that Christ will build the church upon Himself. Strictly speaking, this is a wrong interpretation. The rock does not refer to Christ directly. It refers to the revelation of Christ received by the apostles. In Matthew 16 the Lord asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (v. 15). Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). Then the Lord told Peter that he was blessed because flesh and blood had not revealed this to him but His Father in the heavens (v. 17). Peter received the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. This revelation of Christ is the rock upon which He builds His church.
This corresponds with Ephesians 2:20, which tells us that the church as the house of God is being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone. According to 1 Corinthians 3:11, the foundation is Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2, however, says that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Furthermore, in Ephesians 2, Christ is not the foundation but the cornerstone that joins together the two walls, one of the Jewish believers and the other of the Gentile believers. The foundation is the revelation concerning Christ received by the apostles and prophets. This implies that the Lord Jesus would not build up His church directly. He builds up His church through the apostles and through the prophets.
In Ephesians 4 we are told that the very Christ who is building up His church gave many gifts. He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers for the purpose of perfecting the saints. The Head does not build the church directly. He only gives the gifted persons for the building up of the church. Even the gifted persons — the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers — do not build the church directly. They perfect all the members, and the members do the building work directly to build up the Body of Christ. This is clearly revealed in Ephesians 4:16. After all the members have grown up into the Head in all things, out from this Head the entire Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love. This growth is caused by the Body being joined together through the rich supply of the joints and being knit together through the operation in the measure of each one part. The real building is by each one part. The Body is built directly by all the members, not by the gifts or by the Head directly.
Ephesians 4:16 is the unique verse in the Bible that shows us how the organic Body of Christ is directly and practically built up. It is built up by each member. Based upon this revelation we can say that the traditional way of meeting and serving in Christianity is absolutely wrong. We must see that the Body of Christ is built directly neither by the Head nor by the gifted persons but by all the members. The Body of Christ is built up organically by each member directly, but these members can do very little without being perfected. The perfecting is needed. Today in Christianity, where is the perfecting of the believers? Many preachers speak every Lord’s Day, but who is being perfected to do the work of the ministry? We also need to consider our situation in the Lord’s recovery. The Lord’s recovery has been in the United States since 1962. Within these twenty-six years, how much perfecting work has been going on among us? Who among us has been perfected? I am so burdened to see the Lord’s desire accomplished among us that I do not care for the price that I have to pay. I have seen something, and I have received a burden from the Lord to tell His people that we must drop the old way because with it there is not much perfecting of the saints.
The Body of Christ is not organically built up by the Head directly. Ephesians 4 tells us clearly that the Head gives the gifts — the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. He has done His work. He is sitting on the throne in the heavens, waiting to see what these gifted persons will do. Paul did a marvelous job of perfecting the saints, and he provided a pattern for us of the way a gifted member should live and work. I have repented to the Lord very much for not perfecting the saints more in my ministry. My burden from the Lord is very heavy in this matter.
We must see that the enemy of God hates this. I have been speaking for the Lord for fifty-six years, and I have never been attacked as much as I have within these last two years. This opposition is altogether illogical and unreasonable because it has not been originated by any person. It has been originated by the adversary of our God, Satan. He works through people to frustrate God’s desire for the organic building up of the Body of Christ. In Paul’s last Epistle, 2 Timothy, just before his martyrdom, he said that all who were in Asia had turned away from him (1:15). All who were in Asia had rejected his ministry. This rejection of Paul’s ministry, which is the New Testament ministry, is something instigated by God’s enemy, Satan. I have prepared myself that at my going to the Lord my ministry may suffer the same thing as Paul’s. All who were in Asia, including the church in Ephesus, forsook Paul’s ministry, but Paul was still joyful. He told his young co-worker Timothy to be empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus (2:1).
Brother Nee told us in his book Church Affairs that to have the traditional meeting on Sunday morning is according to the custom of the nations. Second Kings 17:8 in the New American Standard Bible says that the children of Israel sinned against the Lord by walking according to the customs of the nations. According to the customs of the nations means according to the way of worshipping the idols. Brother Nee also told us that it is hard to take away the habit of meeting in the way of one person speaking and the rest listening. He said that we all need to push until such a habit and practice is pushed out of the way. The traditional way of meeting and serving annuls the functions of the members of Christ and does not develop the members. Therefore, there is no direct, actual, and practical building up of the Body of Christ. The Head has given the gifts, but regrettably many of the gifts have been abused to build up a big congregation, a big façade for a show. A congregation may be built up, but what members have been perfected to do the direct building of the Body of Christ? In locality after locality, the Lord desires to see all the saints perfected to be the living, functioning members of the organic Body of Christ.
We must endeavor, strive, and struggle to tear down the old, traditional way. Some have the concept that the new way is preaching the gospel by door-knocking. This is a wrong realization and concept. The new way is not mainly to preach the gospel by knocking on doors, but it is the building up of Christ’s organic Body directly by each one of the saints. If the Body of Christ is not being built up by each saint directly, we are in the traditional way. We need the gifted persons to perfect the saints to do this direct building work. The gifted ones need to go to the homes of the saints to sit down with them and teach them mouth to mouth. We saw from Acts 20 that Paul stayed in Ephesus for three years. He perfected the saints by teaching everything concerning God and His economy publicly and from house to house with tears. Who is doing this work among us today? The gifted ones need to go from house to house to perfect the saints with tears.
Some have criticized the way of visiting people by knocking on their doors to preach the gospel. They say that this way does not work. The reason it may not work is that after getting people baptized, they are not cared for adequately and properly. If a mother delivers a child and then neglects the child without giving him the proper care, can that child live? If we baptize someone and then go visit him twice a week with much prayer and labor, this new one can be nourished, raised up, and perfected. We baptized thousands and thousands of people in Taipei, but we found out that it is not so easy to raise them up. A child can be delivered within a short time, but mothers spend years to raise up a child properly. Even if the mother is sick, she still has to take care of her little one by nourishing and cherishing him. We need to take care of the new ones that we baptize as if we were caring for our little babes.
Paul bore the burden of the church all the time. In 2 Corinthians 11:28 he says, “Apart from the things which have not been mentioned, there is this: the crowd of cares pressing upon me daily, the anxious concern for all the churches.” The concern for the churches was upon Paul’s heart. This is why Paul called for the elders of Ephesus to come to him at Miletus when he was on his way to Jerusalem. Paul was so burdened for the perfecting of the saints. We need this perfecting work in the Lord’s recovery today. Without the perfecting of the saints, there cannot be the growth of the Body. The growth of the Body is the building up of the Body. A little babe grows gradually by being nourished and cherished all the time.
Because of the Lord’s burden to have the building up of His Body, I would not count the cost to see this worked out. Sooner or later, the Lord Jesus, the Head, will do something. He is sovereign. He is on the throne. He is the One who directs the entire universe. He will do something to fulfill these two portions of the Word: 1 Corinthians 14 and Ephesians 4. I believe the time that He will take to accomplish this will not be too long. This is the end time. These two portions of the holy Word are not in vain. They will be fulfilled. Some of the ones who are very close to me feel unhappy that I am working so much. They warn me that I am over eighty and that I could die at any time. They advise me to take care of myself better. I would like to do this, but Someone within me will not let me go. I have to speak forth the Lord’s burden in these days.
It is encouraging to see the Lord’s working in Taipei. The saints there are in the transition from the old way to the new way in order to fulfill 1 Corinthians 14:26 by Ephesians 4:11-16. They are in a transition from one world to another world. They are growing, and they are under the joining and the knitting. They are in the experience of the Body causing the growth of the Body unto a direct building up of itself in love.
When I visited Korea recently, I told the young people there to rise up to drop the old way and pick up the new way to be the gifted persons. I told them that even though they were young, they could be the gifted persons to do the work of perfecting others. I encouraged them that maybe after five years thousands of young people would be perfected, and they all would do the work of the ministry to build up the Body of Christ organically and directly.
If we take this new way, this scriptural way, the so-called pastors will be unemployed. There will be no clergy and no laity. Instead of being pastors in the traditional way, we have to be little perfecters, laboring like the apostle Paul did. The gifted persons should not speak to build up a congregation as a façade in order to make a name for themselves. The gifted ones need to go to the homes of the saints to perfect them. If a person labors by visiting the homes of the saints, in a sense he will be unknown because he does not display himself. There will not be a façade of a large congregation, because the church will be scattered in all the small homes of the saints. Because the church life is basically in the homes, there will not be a display of a big congregation, but the One on the throne will see His Body under the proper, direct, organic building up. This kind of building up makes Him happy.
I hope that we can be impressed with the vision of the organic building up of the Body of Christ. The Lord will change us and altogether revolutionize us if we see this vision. Once we see this vision, we will have to give ourselves up for it. My desire is to both live and die to the Lord to see this vision, His heart’s desire, carried out. On this earth there is the need of many young ones to be the perfecters. First, we have to be perfected by someone and by the Spirit through the Word. Then we need to learn how to perfect others to do the work of the ministry to build up the Body of Christ. Those of us who have seen the vision will be burdened to sacrifice ourselves as martyrs so that the Lord will have a way to fulfill Ephesians 4 for the purpose of having the building up of His organic Body through each saint speaking Him. We can all prophesy one by one. When all the saints are perfected to prophesy, to speak Christ, there will be meetings all over the earth that are full of mutuality according to 1 Corinthians 14:26. Then the traditional way of one person speaking and the rest listening will be fully pushed away. Every attendant in the meeting will be a speaker, building up the Body of Christ.
This organic building is realized by our growing in life. If we are going to perfect others, we must help them to grow in life. In order to be perfected, we must grow not in our natural life but in the divine life, in the life of God which is Christ.
We grow in Christ by holding to truth — things that are true and real (Eph. 4:15a). Holding to truth literally means “truthing it.” Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes that all is vanity. “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (1:2). Because everything is vanity, the apostle Paul says that he counted all things as refuse that he might gain Christ (Phil. 3:8). In this universe full of vanity, there are some true things. The true things in this universe are the processed Triune God and His New Testament economy, the all-inclusive Christ, and the organic church, the organic Body of Christ. In the universe of vanity these are the true things. We need to hold to these true things in love, that we may grow up into Christ. The content of God’s New Testament economy is the processed Triune God Himself. The content of God’s New Testament economy is not the “raw” God but the very God in His Trinity processed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. We have to hold to the processed Triune God and His New Testament economy, which is the dispensation (arrangement) of God’s hidden mystery (Eph. 3:9) to have a church to be the Body of Christ (v. 10; 1:23). We also need to hold to the all-inclusive Christ, the One who fills all in all (v. 23), whose dimensions are immeasurable (3:18) and whose riches are untraceable (v. 8b). Finally, we have to hold to the church, the Body of Christ, an organism (1:23), as the fullness of Christ to be His expression.
If we do not hold to the truth — the processed Triune God and His New Testament economy, the all-inclusive Christ, and His Body, the organic church — we cannot grow up into Christ, the Head. Many Christians do not grow in life because they do not know how to hold to these true things, but we need to know how. By holding to these true things in love, we grow up into the Head, Christ, in all things, both small and great things (4:15b). We can grow up into Christ by recognizing the right and authority of Christ as the Head. We are His members under His authority, under His headship. To grow up into the Head, Christ, is to allow Christ to grow and increase in our inward parts. For us to grow up into Christ means that Christ grows in us. Christ should increase, and we should decrease. When we grow in life, this means that we decrease and allow Him to increase. When He increases in us, that is our growth in life. When we have more of Christ wrought into us and interwoven into our being, we are growing in Christ and with Christ.
Our growing into the Head is in the divine life of the processed Triune God. We grow in this divine life until eventually we are a full-grown man (v. 13). This full-grown man is not an individual man but a corporate, universal, great man. When we are a full-grown man, we will have the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (v. 13). Christ’s fullness is His organic Body, the expression of His unsearchable riches. His Body as His fullness has a stature, and this stature has a measure.
Ephesians 4:14 says that when we are a full-grown man, we will be no longer little children. To be carried about by any wind of teaching is a strong indication of being childish. Children cannot discern what teachings distract them from God’s central purpose and what teachings are according to God’s New Testament economy. It would be hard for little children to discern the difference between G, C, O, and Q; nor could they discern the difference between I and 1. Much ability is needed to discern things properly. The apostles are those who are qualified by being able to discern the truth. They know how to cut straight the word of the truth with a definite direction for a definite purpose in the way that a carpenter cuts wood straight (2 Tim. 2:15). A carpenter is trained to cut wood in a proper, unbiased way. A sign of being childish is not being able to discern the truth. An adult can discern the difference between G, C, O, and Q because he is no longer a child. Are we no longer little children in the spiritual things? If we are no longer little children, we should be able to discern the truth and the teachings that are according to God’s New Testament economy for the building up of the Body of Christ. For the protection of the children, a mother always chooses the proper food so that her child will be healthy and will not be poisoned.
The Body grows and is built up by being joined together and knit together in the divine element (Eph. 4:16a). The divine element is the element of the processed God, who is embodied in Christ. With such an element we grow up into the Head in all things. After growing up into Him, we issue out from Him the rich supply to the Body. We are joined together through every joint (every gifted person) of the rich supply. This is like the joining together of the frame (the structure) of a building to be one system. Every building has a structure, a frame, and all the parts of this frame, this structure, are joined together to be one system. We are also being knit together through the operation in the measure of each one part (each one member of the Body). The knitting together (the interweaving) of all the parts of the building is not only to have the parts joined together but also to have them interwoven for the one Body as a whole. A stone building is put together by the interweaving of the stones. All the pieces of stone are interwoven together, knit together, by being compacted together in a solid way. The joining and the knitting are the real building up. To be joined together and to be knit or interwoven together is to be built together. The joining and the knitting issue in a built-up church, a built-up Body of Christ.
Through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation of each one part in its measure, the Body of Christ, being joined together and knit together, is built up as a whole, and this is the genuine building of the Body of Christ as an organism. The vision of this organic building will not only cause us to drop the old, traditional way and pick up the new, scriptural way, but it will also revolutionize our entire being. If this building is not realized in my time on this earth, at least this fellowship is in print for future generations. This printed fellowship concerning the building up of the Body of Christ will speak to our generation and to future generations until what is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14 and Ephesians 4 is completely fulfilled.
The direct building of the organic Body of Christ is by the Body itself. The Body is built directly by all the members of Christ functioning, each in his own measure, mainly in prophesying — speaking for the Lord. All of us have a measure, and we can function in our measure. My little finger functions, and I am so happy with its function. Without my little finger, it would be hard for me to take care of the itching within my ear. My little finger really functions in its measure to comfort me. In like manner, all the members of the Body of Christ can function in their own measure. We all function mainly in prophesying, in speaking for the Lord.
I am expecting to see meetings all over the earth in which everyone is speaking Christ, speaking forth Christ, and speaking Christ into others in the way of dispensing Christ into others. Then an organism will come into existence that can be seen not only by God but also by all His lovers. This direct building by all the members of Christ takes place through the perfecting work of all the gifted persons under the bountiful supply of the divine element of the ascended Christ in His ascension. We need to practice the fellowship in this book so that we can see the reality of such an organic building on this earth.
